


Letting It Win

by XmagicalX (Xparrot)



Category: Invisible Man (TV 2000)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gen, POV First Person, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-18
Updated: 2001-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 15:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/XmagicalX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We're all insane. It's because we're human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting It Win

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: They ain't mine. Sigh. No money contributed to or resulted from the writing of this story. Siiiigh. Feedback is marvelous payment, however. Yay!
> 
> I must be inspired! Came up with this on the commute from work last Friday and had to scribble it down...

We're all insane. It's because we're human.

There was a time, those twilight teenage years between childhood and maturity, that I experienced this truth directly, visceral and awful. When I had been alone for long periods of time - and in certain situations I had little else to do but think - I felt something inside me. A beast. A monster. Not one which would devour me, but rather everyone else. My dark side. All of us have one, they say, but mine existed more vividly than most.

I ignored it. I suppressed it, bottled it deep inside and forgot its existence.

It took me entirely by surprise when it was released.

Afterwards I tried to deny it. To say this wasn't me at all, but something external, a force outside myself which displaced the real man. That it had not been I who hurt, who could have killed. This violence was not my own.

Stupid. It had always been mine.

Do you know how it feels, to see pain in those you loved? It stabs through your own heart like a knife, an agony almost physical in its torture. And every flash of fear in their eyes afterward twists the blade deeper into you.

My brother was better than me. I realized it when I was young, too young to identify the quality that divided us. But I knew he was loved more, in some indefinable way, for all that we were shown the same affection. For all that I was his better in many ways, he bested me in all their eyes. Responsibility, perhaps. A righteousness lacking in me.

When we played, he would build towers, and I would knock them down. Sometimes he would cry, and they would slap me, but I would do it again the next time. Seeing his tears would make me superior, for all I was the younger. I ignored the pain that the sight would also spark in me.

I don't avoid pain anymore.

It doesn't matter how intelligent you are. Like everything, it only matters what you do with it. Wasted potential, they said. But he wasn't fighting a thing inside. His was deep, concealed. Buried. Not active like mine. Not restless. How was I to be anything, wrestling with it?

I have superiority now, of a sort. They're scared of me, my colleagues. They know. Not immediately. But the first time they witness me lose control, even for a moment, ever after I see the fear in the far depths of their eyes.

Do you know what that's like? When everyone around you, even those closest, are frightened by what you are? By what you could do?

They have reason to be scared. I am human. Sooner or later, madness comes.

Do you know what it is to lose control?

To lose control, they say - as if control can be misplaced, like a sock or an umbrella. To lose one's temper, to lose one's head. It's not the things that get lost; it's your own self which wanders.

If you go too far, you can't return. But you never can as it is. Whatever road you set your feet on, you must follow it. So is the nature of life. Keep walking. Finally you'll arrive at a crossroads.

Two paths before you: Liberty. Morality.

Be careful. They are mutually exclusive; to choose one is to deny the other. And both are cages. One will bind you to two choices, good or evil, right or wrong. The other offers so many choices that you will never get the freedom to decide, but always go with what sweeps you along.

Be careful. One way brings only grief. The other can bring joy as well, if you understand it.

I chose wrong once. But I don't dwell on past mistakes. And I won't make that one again.

To commit myself finally opened my mind; at last I was able to truly learn. Before I had drifted, lighting but briefly on the ideals of intellectualism, on the works of past genius. Now I had the focus to devote myself to education, enlightenment. I absorbed knowledge like a sponge, and unlocked my personal brand of genius, my own comprehension.

Don't be afraid of pain. Too many are. But it's feeling. It tells you that you are alive. When you slip into the abyss, it's only by the thorns scraping your hands that you know you are falling. It's only by the shattering impact that you know you've hit the bottom.

The monster is real. Don't doubt it. And don't think you can't fight it.

Don't believe you'd want to, if you really understood.

They look at me with fear because they know the truth of what I am. The honesty of my existence. I can lie; it does not change me. I can play a thousand roles, and still be my very self. My desires, my wishes...they're real to me. And what else is there?

They're frightened of me, and every nervous glance they cast my way stings. Every time I hurt them, every hurt I give myself - everything is added. Pain is never supplanted, only accumulated. Everything builds.

Do you know how that feels?

It's the deepest truth. It's the purest liberation.

It's ecstasy.

There's nothing I can't do, and nothing I don't want to.

Last week I heard something intriguing. In the United States a scientist named Kevin Fawkes has developed a fascinating creation. I know of people who will be most interested in it.

I think I'll help him. Change my name and join his project. Obtain what they want. And see as well if I can't share this gift. This liberty. This...triumph of reality...


End file.
